Is it to soon to blame Mayor Curry & Mike Williams for the 13 different murders?

[finehoe]

Births to single mothers:



Murder rate:



So there's a correlation alright, an inverse one.

[Adam White]

When it comes to murder rates in Jacksonville, I think its hard to put the blame on any one person or two for that matter.  The presumption is that murder is something new in Jacksonville.

And, I don't mean that in a pro any political party/elected official way.  As a City, we've never addressed the real issues .. income inequality, opportunity, allocation of resources, etc.  We are experiencing the end result of decades of misunderstanding of how to deal with the socioeconomic issues that have brought us to this point.  And, unfortunately, I think it will take us decades to dig out from that.

I only hope the new administration sets us on the right path.

Income inequality, inequality, opportunity, allocation of recourses. All money answers. Money answers don't work. It's not socioeconomic in my opinion. In the past, many (most) poor people have been perfectly great human beings and citizens.
What has changed is the family.

Single babies that are raising babies (or not raising more accurately) is the issue. Obviously there are exceptions, but young single mothers raising kids (or multiple kids) with no help had been the problem for the last 25 years.

I would like to see you back this up logically.  And Im not taking the piss out of you.  Can you demonstrate any of these points or are you simply repeating what you've heard on television?

Maybe I've had one too many bourbon. You don't see the logic in the lack of parenting leading to criminal and uncaring, unhumane actions of young punks these days?

2/3 of the children born in Iceland are born to single mothers. You don't often hear "Iceland" and "crime" mentioned in the same sentence. They did have a flourishing "punk" scene for a long time, though.

I don't often hear Iceland and anything mentioned in the same sentence. Probably because it's not relevant,  especially not in a conversation about murder rates in the U.S.

Additionally, my original post specifically mentioned young single mothers.

Having taught at several very bad Jacksonville high schools 10+ years ago (Raines and Englewood), I will tell you that I COMPLETELY bought in to the "breakdown of the American family" rhetoric from the GOP.  I really thought that was a BS right-wing talking point, but it's true.  You have kids coming from families where no one cares if they can read, no one cares if they get F's in school, no one cares whether they get suspended from school.  I saw this on a massive scale, and this is just what I observed as one person in two schools over 4 years.  Children having children, and then often not having any fathers, leads to more children having children, being raised with no respect or values.  It's awful.  It really, really opened my eyes.

I don't necessarily disagree - I think the difference is the issue of support. Nordic countries support single mothers. This is an issue for society to address - but the right wants us to believe it's about personal responsibility and assume that the only way to address the problem is for the dads to hang around.

This is a socioeconomic issue. Children of wealthy or middle class single mothers aren't the issue.

[finehoe]

So more specifically, yes I think, young single American mothers with no present fathers or partners or family helping them raise their babies is a pretty large factor.

So you choose to ignore the evidence I presented showing that although births to single mothers has gone up, the murder rate has gone down.

[jaxjags]

Sorry Adam White, but you are wrong. I have worked for a Finish/Swedish company for 21 years and lived in JAX and ATL. I have visited Scandinavia hundreds of time and they have very few single moms. Marriage is looked at differently. They have very strong family units but don't always get married. That decisions is usually based on company/insurance benefits. Yes the socioeconomic situation is different, but the idea that they have many fatherless children running around is not. Also remember that large city life is not common in Scandinavia. Helsinki is JAX size, Stockholm and Oslo are Orlando size and the whole population of Finland is less than Georgia. Maybe the real answer are they have few unplanned pregnancies.

[Adam White]

Sorry Adam White, but you are wrong. I have worked for a Finish/Swedish company for 21 years and lived in JAX and ATL. I have visited Scandinavia hundreds of time and they have very few single moms. Marriage is looked at differently. They have very strong family units but don't always get married. That decisions is usually based on company/insurance benefits. Yes the socioeconomic situation is different, but the idea that they have many fatherless children running around is not. Also remember that large city life is not common in Scandinavia. Helsinki is JAX size, Stockholm and Oslo are Orlando size and the whole population of Finland is less than Georgia. Maybe the real answer are they have few unplanned pregnancies.

Well, I guess that settles it. I'm just wrong.

By the way - Finland isn't in Scandinavia. Neither is Iceland.

Edit: Whilst I doubt this journalist has as much 'Scandinavian' experience as you, I found the article interesting nonetheless.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/18/iceland

[finehoe]

I try to ignore you but its hard.

Yes, one must always ignore anything that challenges what one "knows".

no, I don't think the increase in single mothers is the reason the murder rate has decreased.

If you actually think that what it purports to show you really aren't very bright.

[TheCat]

2/3 of the children born in Iceland are born to single mothers. You don't often hear "Iceland" and "crime" mentioned in the same sentence. They did have a flourishing "punk" scene for a long time, though.

Apples and oranges. Also people in poor states like West Virginia aren't murdering each other at an alarming pace like say Chicago. Liberals (I'm not saying that you are) wanna think that every ethnicity is the same like a cookie cutter, and that's simply not the case; Generally speaking, we (different races/ethnicities) all have our strengths and weaknesses. There is nothing 'racist' about what I said (not saying that you are saying that).

I-10, with genuine sincerity...

Please, please, please list the strengths and weaknesses of different races/ethnicities.

The more specific the better.

[TheCat]

Can't blame Williams, he's been on vacation :/

Williams has been nothing but a disappointment. Maybe Hackney will run.

Already? How so?

[finehoe]

Is it to soon to blame Mayor Curry & Mike Williams for the 13 different murders?

To be fair, Jacksonville isn't the only place where there's been an uptick in murders:

Several big U.S. cities see homicide rates surge

After years of declining violent crime, several major American cities experienced a dramatic surge in homicides during the first half of this year.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/09/us-cities-homicide-surge-2015/29879091/

[I-10east]

I-10, with genuine sincerity...

Please, please, please list the strengths and weaknesses of different races/ethnicities.

The more specific the better.

I think that you are grown enough to figure that out for yourself Cat. I'm not gonna get into specifics, because all that's gonna lead to is some cherry picking of words, attempted shaming etc. I'll say this much, I would never put an entire group into a cookie cutter, and that's why I used the word 'GENERALLY'.

[TheCat]

^I'm confident that I'm not grown up enough to figure it out...

[Adam White]

I-10, with genuine sincerity...

Please, please, please list the strengths and weaknesses of different races/ethnicities.

The more specific the better.

I think that you are grown enough to figure that out for yourself Cat. I'm not gonna get into specifics, because all that's gonna lead to is some cherry picking of words, attempted shaming etc. I'll say this much, I would never put an entire group into a cookie cutter, and that's why I used the word 'GENERALLY'.

"Generally" is a cookie cutter - just a slightly smaller one. It's akin to saying, "There's a difference between a nigger and a black guy" or "Not all gay people are faggots".

[wsansewjs]

When it comes to murder rates in Jacksonville, I think its hard to put the blame on any one person or two for that matter.  The presumption is that murder is something new in Jacksonville.

And, I don't mean that in a pro any political party/elected official way.  As a City, we've never addressed the real issues .. income inequality, opportunity, allocation of resources, etc.  We are experiencing the end result of decades of misunderstanding of how to deal with the socioeconomic issues that have brought us to this point.  And, unfortunately, I think it will take us decades to dig out from that.

I only hope the new administration sets us on the right path.

Income inequality, inequality, opportunity, allocation of recourses. All money answers. Money answers don't work. It's not socioeconomic in my opinion. In the past, many (most) poor people have been perfectly great human beings and citizens.
What has changed is the family.

Single babies that are raising babies (or not raising more accurately) is the issue. Obviously there are exceptions, but young single mothers raising kids (or multiple kids) with no help had been the problem for the last 25 years.

Your statement really pisses me off. I have been raised by my single mom for most of my life, and she never HAD any help, and here I am with a college degree, SQUEAKY CLEAN criminal record, and raising my own family.

So am I part of the problem?

-Josh

[Adam White]

When it comes to murder rates in Jacksonville, I think its hard to put the blame on any one person or two for that matter.  The presumption is that murder is something new in Jacksonville.

And, I don't mean that in a pro any political party/elected official way.  As a City, we've never addressed the real issues .. income inequality, opportunity, allocation of resources, etc.  We are experiencing the end result of decades of misunderstanding of how to deal with the socioeconomic issues that have brought us to this point.  And, unfortunately, I think it will take us decades to dig out from that.

I only hope the new administration sets us on the right path.

Income inequality, inequality, opportunity, allocation of recourses. All money answers. Money answers don't work. It's not socioeconomic in my opinion. In the past, many (most) poor people have been perfectly great human beings and citizens.
What has changed is the family.

Single babies that are raising babies (or not raising more accurately) is the issue. Obviously there are exceptions, but young single mothers raising kids (or multiple kids) with no help had been the problem for the last 25 years.

Your statement really pisses me off. I have been raised by my single mom for most of my life, and she never HAD any help, and here I am with a college degree, SQUEAKY CLEAN criminal record, and raising my own family.

So am I part of the problem?

-Josh

No, you're not at all.

I stand by my original statement(s). It's about support. Maybe the support is from the state, maybe the support is from the wider society. Or maybe the support is from the extended family. (All three are present in Nordic countries, but things like free healthcare, free childcare, extended maternity leave and other benefits are widespread and completely alien to Americans). But the issue isn't not having a father - it's about having the resources to raise a child when you have to do it alone.

Assuming that the only solution is for dads to stick around is ludicrous. And as I also pointed out, this isn't an issue for wealthy or even middle class single mothers. So it's clearly socioeconomic.

Part of the problem here is that people are happier to apportion blame than they are to look at the reason for the problem and what they might need to do to solve it. It's easier to just blame single mothers than to ask, "what can we do to help single parents".

As Finehoe tried to show, single parenthood has been increasing in the USA, yet murders have been decreasing. In fact, I believe crime is decreasing as a whole. So it's ludicrous to blame single mothers or single parents for the ills of society.

[finehoe]

What kind of opinion do you prefer.

How about ones based on facts and data, rather than on what you "think".